


A Song for the Faithful Sons

by thatsrightdollface



Series: Seven Worlds (Crossovers for the Umbrella Academy Team) [7]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Batman Fusion, Character Study, Crossover, Discussion of Major Character Death, Following orders.... or not???, Gen, Luther wonders what it would mean to kill -- or not kill -- the Joker basically, moral questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-15
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27022657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: The first time Luther Hargreeves visited Gotham City, he was under orders to hand Joker over to the Batman.Batman crossover.  This is influenced heavily by my feelings about "Under the Red Hood," but artistic liberties are taken/references are made to other source material too.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Diego Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves, Joker & Messing With Everyone's Sense of Morality, Luther Hargreeves & Reginald Hargreeves, mentions of others - Relationship
Series: Seven Worlds (Crossovers for the Umbrella Academy Team) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1907311
Comments: 5
Kudos: 20





	A Song for the Faithful Sons

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CytosineSkald](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CytosineSkald/gifts).



> Hi there!!! :D I hope you enjoy this fic -- thank you very much for reading!!! I'm truly sorry for any and all mistakes I might've made. My friend CytosineSkald's drawn and written some really amazing stuff about Dick Grayson: I've had Ideas about gifting a fic involving him to her from the minute I started this TUA crossover series~ This is the 7th and final fic I planned to write for that project, though I've been toying with the idea of writing a show TUA/comic TUA crossover sometime down the line, and might end up sticking that in the series, too, when it's done. A sort of wildcard, maybe~? At any rate, I've had a ton of fun with this project, and I really appreciate you taking the time to click on it. I hope you've been staying safe and doing well!!!

The first time Luther Hargreeves visited Gotham City, he was handing the Joker over to people who could hopefully, maybe, possibly restrain him. Arkham Asylum; the Batman. Not exactly a vacation or daring rescue or anything: Dad told Luther and his brother Diego to escort the Joker back into Batman’s territory and then get home ASAP for their next mission. Luther and Diego were Number One and Number Two of the Umbrella Academy, respectively. Spaceboy — superstrength — and the Kraken, who could always hit his targets and didn’t need to breathe, not underwater, not anywhere. They were being sent in as a pair, this time, because everyone was in pretty unsteady shape after fighting the Joker — all of them, up against just one technically-powerless murderclown — when he’d decided to pay them a visit.

A simple drop-off wasn’t the sort of mission that would usually call for backup, but... despite his restraints, despite his broken bones, despite how he’d casually drawled, “Oh, no, fellas! Looks like you caught me!”... this was still the Joker. Diego hadn’t even complained about getting sent with Luther. Not this time. 

Joker had swiped some chemicals from Dad’s lab, see... and even though, yeah, the Umbrella Academy’d eventually caught him, those chemicals were still MIA. That could be really awful, Dad said, but of course he wouldn’t tell Luther exactly what the Joker had, now. What they’d lost. What the Clown Prince of Crime might be scheming. Diego was damn sure the Joker had _let_ them catch him... that they were playing right into his rubbery chemical-white-bleached hands. Dad said that was nonsense, and so Luther echoed him back, but you know... it was impossible to be sure, wasn’t it? What Luther knew was this: Dad said that if Joker claimed they should kill him, they definitely shouldn’t. He was Batman’s problem, and so he’d go back to the Batman. Simple enough. They could follow those orders, couldn’t they?

“Good to know this’ll be over soon,” Luther had grunted, throwing some equipment into the back of Dad’s plane before heading out here. 

“Right,” Diego’d answered. Dubious. Gritting his teeth. 

Ever since their run-in with the Joker at home, Allison, Number Three, the Rumor, had refused to use her powers, or even really come out of her room. Number Four had disappeared, probably high out of his mind slumped against a crumbly brick wall somewhere, and Number Six still hadn’t woken up after whatever the Joker did to him. Gotham’s most relentless killer clown had filled their house with traps, right under their noses — the Umbrella Academy’s manor had become a funhouse, full of Jack-in-the-Box horrors and chemical gas. For a while there, Luther hadn’t been able to stop laughing, even when he started coughing blood down his shirt, too. Even while he was still struggling to snap the Joker’s neck, and failing even with all his strength. 

Luther’s throat was still raw, truth be told, here in Dad’s plane, bringing the Joker across the country and back to Gotham’s decadent cathedral spires and prowling gargoyles, Gotham’s smoggy neon skies and muddy alleyways. Diego was limping, from where some of Joker’s chattering-teeth-bombs had mangled one of his feet. Of course that infamous Joker gas wouldn’t work on someone like Diego, who didn’t need to breathe, so the Clown Prince had gotten creative. But Diego’s foot could heal, and Luther was sure Vanya — the only one of them without powers, the only one Dad had hidden from the Joker — would bring Allison food and make sure she actually ate it. Dad would save Number Six, obviously, and then of course Six would bring Four home, and... and... 

And then this could all be over, right? Like Dad said?

“Dad isn’t telling us everything,” Diego had warned. “He _never_ tells us everything.” 

“We don’t _need to know_ everything,” Luther had shot back. The words felt as natural as breathing, after all this time, but nothing… not even breathing… had been natural at all, with the Joker in their home. The Joker under their skin, seeping into their lungs. Dad would be able to handle this, right? Of course, Dad should be able to handle this, and Luther would do whatever he had to do to help him.

Luther and Diego were under strict orders not to undo Dad’s electronic muzzle-thing from around the Joker’s mouth. The Joker _knew_ people, in a way they never quite knew him. So the clown couldn’t speak, as Luther and Diego flew him into Gotham, but his eyes were too-sharp, sour-candy chemical bright. Whenever Luther looked back at him, the Joker held his gaze, like he was patiently waiting for him to play his next hand in a game of cards. Like he was sure, any minute now, the Umbrella Academy was gonna get the punchline to some grand joke. 

The Joker said everything fell apart; the Joker said he could break anything, drive anyone to monstrosity. 

But not the Batman, yet. 

The Joker said the only thing that could be trusted was wild chance, was chaos and unraveling, because everything else was like a cheap mask. You could hide the rot behind jester paint — you could hide humanity behind manners and skyscrapers, fundraising galas and all of swooning polite society — but in the end, ruin seeped through. 

The Batman would deal with his laughing shadow, his murderclown, his biggest fan, in the ways he always did. All Luther and Diego had to do was hand him over in chains. And if maybe sometimes Luther thought, _“I could... I could snap the Joker’s neck right now. We could say it was an accident. Joker doesn’t have to kill anyone else, not ever again, and I know Diego wouldn’t rat me out...”_

_“Diego would help me...”_

_“Diego’s sharpening his knives right this very second, as I fly this plane. Maybe he’s thinking about doing it himself?”_

Well. 

Well then, that was a voice Luther crushed down, somewhere restless and deep inside of him. He had to have faith; he had to obey his orders; he had to lower Dad’s plane carefully to rest on the roof of Arkham Asylum, where he’d been told the Batman would be waiting for them.

It wasn’t the Batman this time, though — it was a pair of his sons. Nightwing and the Red Hood. They were arguing, with Nightwing’s lithe arms crossed over his chest, posing like a performer, always, like the Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze that he was. Smiling grimly, as the Red Hood’s fists trembled, clenched at his sides. Nightwing shook his head. The Red Hood reached for one of the guns strapped across his chest, gestured with it, pointing at the Umbrella Academy’s plane. He wasn’t going to shoot, Luther knew. The Red Hood wanted Joker dead; Nightwing stood in for Batman’s order. Batman said to bring the Joker in alive, and Nightwing saluted, tried to come up with some sort of quip. It was an awful dance. The Joker had driven their family apart, so Luther knew the Red Hood stood away from everybody else, even now. Joker had beaten him to death with a crowbar, and Batman still wouldn’t bend. Batman never killed, not for Red Hood, not for anything. Joker couldn’t break Batman, see; Joker couldn’t shape Batman into a monster. Or so it was said. 

Nightwing didn’t bend, either. _But Luther could crack the Joker apart in his hands, right here. While Gotham’s Clown Prince was shackled. It would be so easy — it would be so... so wrong, right? _

_Killing the Joker would be wrong._

_It could save so many lives._

_Dad had said not to._

_And so..._

_And so Luther landed the plane, and recited Dad’s orders in his head, and felt the Joker laughing at him, silently, muzzled. Laughing at him even so. What did Joker know that Luther didn’t? Besides what chemicals he’d stolen; besides why those chemicals were important; besides what he’d said to Allison before she retreated inside herself, and to Number Four before he stumbled away into the dark. Besides so many things, actually. That was pretty obvious, wasn’t it?_

When Luther and Diego trooped dutifully out of Dad’s plane and over to Gotham’s protectors, to Batman’s sons, for a second it felt like looking into a funhouse mirror. If Joker had killed Diego... or if Number Six _didn’t_ _wake up_ , honestly... would Luther be able to keep marching on, exactly the way Dad said? What would it say about him, if (when) he could? And if Luther had been the one who died messily and alone, listening to Joker’s laughter in the bloody air, would he come back furious, too? Could he forgive, if he knew the Joker would get free again and again, hiding mysterious chemicals in secret places across the country, always plotting, always twisting the world? If he knew Dad let the Joker keep breathing, like the symbol meant more than his son? 

_“But the symbol does mean more,” _Luther told himself. _“It would mean more than me, anyway. Of course it would mean more than me.”_ He couldn’t meet Nightwing’s eyes, not with the sharp domino mask he wore. Batman’s first son’s eyes were blank white and unreadable; after they were done here, he would hurtle himself off these buildings, swinging through the city like he was absolutely fearless, like he never dreamed of falling. The Red Hood hid his whole face behind a mask; he didn’t leave room for his expressions to betray him. Luther had read Dad’s files on both these guys. Nightwing was a spy, an actor, a Stepford-smiler who kept all Batman’s secrets. Red Hood couldn’t lie convincingly much at all, anymore, and his smiles looked wrong unless he really, truly meant them. 

Luther might have said he was more like Nightwing — who never seemed to slip, not on rooftops slick with blood or dirty rain — and Diego was more like Red Hood — who wore his heart on his bleeding sleeve. But looking at them now, a horrible thought came to him. Who really knew how the coin flip would land, until all was said and done? Who knew what cards you’d draw; who knew what hand you’d play; who knew if Nightwing sometimes thought about leaving the Joker dead, a broken mess, and claiming the Penguin did it? Maybe Red Hood sometimes wanted to go home and tell Batman that he truly did want to be Good, to be a hero, to save the world. Maybe it was never so easy as saying, _“I’m the faithful son, and he’s the outlaw.”_ Maybe it was wrong to kill the Joker, and it was wrong to give him a slap on the wrist and lock him back up in a maximum security cell that probably wasn’t too different from one he’d busted out of before. 

That uncertainty... the Joker breathed unknowing, unmaking, the same as he breathed toxic air. Luther tried to shake it out of his head, tried to keep his expression steady, but he felt sure Diego had seen him flinch. Diego patted Luther’s shoulder, at any rate. Protectively. Questioningly, checking in like saying, “You okay, there, big guy?”

Luther nodded, mouth twitching into an almost-smile. They would follow their orders — obviously — and then get back home. Obviously. Luther shook Nightwing’s slick gloved hand, and watched the Red Hood tsk. Slink back into the haunted Gotham night. He probably thought he was outnumbered; he was probably tired of trying to fight his brother with the easy smiles, with jokes for days. If Luther noticed Red Hood stalking over to the plane before the guards and orderlies got out here, a gun in his hand, would he stop him? Would Diego? 

Surely _Nightwing_ would step in, if he noticed. Unless...?

“We’re here for a drop-off,” Diego said. “I guess you know how this whole thing works?”

Nightwing did, nearly as well as he knew the punchlines strung through so much of the Joker’s routine. He invited Luther and Diego in to watch — to maybe get some info on how to help Number Six, to stand close by and ready if the Joker tried anything _funny_. And they could stay, yeah, but just for a little while. Dad _had_ said to get home quickly, in time for their next mission, after all. 


End file.
